#zero work

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

I’M GIVING MYSELF THE WEEKEND OFF

[hong-kong-art-man]

How To Achieve ‘Work-life Balance’? Different Angles To Change Your Balance Perspectives!

Less is more? More is less? What is the right ‘balance’ when we live? Work? Life? Self? Others? Between the 2,3 or even more kinds of values in life, can we really calculate and divide these abstract values such as achievement, meaning and happiness; and multiply the result by a percentage? 50:50%? 20:80%? 30:70%?

There is a prevalent social trend in Hong Kong to talk about ‘work-life balance’ (WLB). In 2003, Greenhaus, Collins and Shaw created the theory of work-life balance. The theory is to help people consider the amount of hours spent on work, involvements devoted to family or self, and the resulting satisfaction from both. Work-life balance is the ideal state where a person chooses to well prioritize the demands of work and career against the needs of his personal life. It is often suggested that a person who lacks the balance will be harmed by excessive work and home obligations. He will also lack personal quality time such as what is commonly known as ‘me time’!

There are 2 usual angles to look at WLB but the final answer depends upon one’s measurements of 2 ultimate things: meaning and happiness of life. My young lawyer friend said, “I dislike my work because it takes up too much of my time. I leave the office normally at 9 p.m. I cannot eat dinner with my kids. But, I need money, big money.” The balance for him is really between family and money. This is the most typical dilemma for people in Hong Kong. An old friend is very brutal, “The answer is money. Money is good for adjusting all balances in life!” The Tai Chi martial master disagreed, “The answer is health. Health is the best indicator which can tell you when to adjust the balance!”

A ‘trust fund baby’ reacted with contempt, “Work is always a mistake. Leisure and play are always correct! For myself, the right balance is zero work!” Another friend who is a social worker said, “The WLB was determined at the early stage when you chose a career. The right balance is between yourself and the organization that you will work in. Some will choose an occupation that is, by its nature, not so busy. Let me give you an example: being the receptionist of a small-scale international liaison office in Central. Another example is this: my friend likes to help the elderly. She works in an emergency alarm system company serving our senior citizens. Irrespective of the heavy workload, she enjoyed the work and said that WLB was never her concern!” A retired teacher interrupted aloofly, “Work-life balance is just an excuse for being lazy!”

An artist tapped his two fingers on the table, “Seriously, if you don’t passionately enjoy your work, please give up! When you are crazily in love with your work, you will not be bothered by the need for WLB!” He said this because he was an artist who completely hated a nine-to-five job and left 2 years ago being an office worker without a backward glance.

For me, work-life balance is a ‘phased’ process suggesting a phased approach. Life is a process during which one, being young, initially must try to be very hard-working, and then less and less diligent when one is becoming old. Aging is the road that we take naturally to discern our declining physical health. Everyone should have experience of getting ambitious in life at least once. Michael B Johnson said well, “Life is in stage. There is a stage where, like grasshoppers, we hop from grass to grass. And another, where we move from grass to grace.” Retiring from working 12 hours a day is certainly the graceful thing when you are over 55. The right work-life balance is therefore not calculated on a daily basis, but according to the different stages in the life cycle of a man.

We tend to think, quite mistakenly, that happy life is the result of the right amount of time that we put in at work or play. It is wrong. Instead, the truth is that happy life is the perceived quality of work or the pleasure derived from work; and how much these can mean to you during the different phases of your life!

Maurice Lee

Chinese Version 中文版: https://www.patreon.com/posts/xiang-gang-ren-84942613

Work-Life Balance  https://youtu.be/e2_I0DtYHwQ   Acknowledgement – I&M Bank Ltd

Dolly Parton – “9 to 5”   https://youtu.be/UbxUSsFXYo4  Acknowledgement – Dolly Parton

Work From Home  https://youtu.be/CYDSXh4R0Mw  Acknowledgement – 信報財經新聞

 Funny Song “阿姨我不想努力了”     https://youtu.be/5Q4w0SLaLDM  Acknowledgement-里長伯的副業FoodYa

[spaceintruderdetector]

The latest from Bob Black, grump and gadfly, being a re-print of his most significant piece (The Abolition of Work), and other articles supplementary to it, as well as a brand new Afterthoughts (which updates his thinking and some references) and an introduction by Bruce Sterling.

https://archive.org/details/InsteadOfWork

[spaceintruderdetector]

Black Eye zine was born pathogenic and perverse in a basement in the Lower East Side's Heart of Darkness in 1988. This book offers some of the best pieces from this fiesty, piss-and-vinegar, punk-inspired series. Pieces on living your life creatively at work, fiction, journal notes, the significance of play, and much more.

Black Eye wants to corrode all your received ideas and cherished ideological assumptions. It will give you a Black Eye if it doesn't open your eyes, and it might just set you on an adventurous path of zero-work role refusal and you'll discover you're a voluntary conscript in an army of conscious egoists practicing the permanent revolution of desire.

https://archive.org/details/BlackEye_201708

[spaceintruderdetector]

Zerowork # 1  

https://archive.org/details/Zerowork1Zerowork

Journal from 1975 collecting essays on the struggle against work.

[moteloleander]

I spent way too much today and now I'm in that weird place where I am guilty but also love the stuff.

[culturefudge]

The debut solo album from the legendary producer behind the Hyperdub label is at times a pretty dark and austere experience. In this interview he describes it quite well himself:  “I wanted a much drier album. I was trying to make this kind of airless vacuum space, make it a bit more airtight. It’s deliberately architecturally sterile.” However, strands of joy and playfulness seem to shine through the bleakness and severity; the warmth in the sound of a piano, the liveliness of a jungle drumbeat, a bright, melodic phrase. The album masterly displays perfect command of dubstep, footwork and grime, while also renewing and reinventing these. Kode9 is also playing around with vaporwave sounds, similar to early James Ferraro and Fatima Al Qadiri.

The track Zero Work stands out to me. Both solid footwork, but with a strong early dubstep sensibility to it, the air and space between the frenetically fast sections results in a riveting and unique composition that is both challenging and intricate, as well as danceable - almost.